then : Kady O'Malley :
"After giving MPs just two hours to debate the pros and cons of a bill that would radically rewrite Canada's election laws, the government has, it seems, heard quite enough from the duly elected representatives in the House.
Yesterday afternoon, Government House Leader Peter Van Loan served notice that he intends to bring forward a motion that would force an end to the first round of debate, which will likely be tabled shortly after the Commons reopens for business later this morning, and -- barring a last-minute rebellion on the Conservative backbench, at least -- passed before noon.".
12 comments:
Fine. We make them choke on their own act. Use the nurulz against them.
Oh, great! Last time Harpercrats got busted , the Ref promised to be extra vigilant; so while the focus's on high sticks and elbows, too many men on the ice and boarding, they simply move the goal posts. Still sounds like cheating.
Will the Ref whistle this one down?
The entire approach to Etobicoke and the limited reasoning provided
by the SC's decision likely precludes the court's reluctance to wade into how our election laws are handled even when they are tampered with.
We, the people, are left to our own devices.
Expect even greater abuses to occur.
More Turn Down the Vote.
A nice fat 25,000$ for party leader's to claim which could help the Greens and the Bloc (iffy)
but is just as much a windfall for Harper who's spent huge sums
promoting himself - what - $120 million a year since he took office? It's the Harper Government, not the Canadian Government after all.
Never mind Laureen's nice little undisclosed accounts.
The penalties are further heft to throw the book at Sona and probably Del Mastro.
The lack of debate is merely the casus belli that this government is in contempt of not only its institutions but of all of its people.
Counting votes means just that. Etobicoke turned on a sample of polls, not on a count.
It's impossible but it happened.
So as this bill steamrolls over parliament without serious debate, neither Harper nor Trudeau are in the House today because they're both out campaigning somewhere and the Liberals vote *twice* with the Cons against the NDP's attempts to stop it.
Meanwhile, CBC's The National responds by only covering Sochi.
Scotty : re Etobicoke
Just parking this here for future reference.
Compliance Review: Final Report and Recommendations
"An estimated 15 percent of voters need some type of “exception” process to be administered before they can be issued a ballot.
Serious errors, of a type the courts consider “irregularities” that can contribute to an election being overturned, were found to occur in 12 percent of all Election Day cases involving voter registration, and 42 percent of cases involving identity vouching.
Overall, the audit estimated that “irregularities” occurred for 1.3 percent of all cases of Election Day voting during the 2011 federal election."
1.3%
Marc Mayrand was barely holding back his rage this morning on CBC Radio's "The House". The muzzling of Elections Canada - not just advertising to encourage more voting, but every kind of research publications and reports on elections fall under not being only about "when and where to vote" - puts Canada's democracy in question. No other democratic nation in the world has such a draconian rule.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/election-reform-bill-an-affront-to-democracy-marc-mayrand-says-1.2527635
Also note that the new Act will make GOTV (where robocalls come into play) far more prevalent since there will be no expenditure cap on trying to reach previous donors. (Talk about a giant loop hole right there!) This puts any new candidate at a disadvantage since they would have no list of prior donors.
Thanks, BY, will give it a listen. Been busy IRL and haven't read the whole act myself yet.
But the two changes you mention very concerning, as is this news :
"An analysis by Elections Canada projects that the Conservatives would pick up 22 of the 30 new seats in the expected 2015 election if the results of the last election were transposed onto the new riding boundaries."
and this from Stephen Maher :
"Wait. What? Winning party gets to appoint central poll supervisors in subsequent election?"
Thanx for the link, Alison.
I guess there's ties, damned ties and statistical ties.
Scotty : A link which would presumably not be available under the new rules :
"Under the proposed bill, the only role of the chief electoral officer would be to inform the public of when, where, and how to vote.
Surveys and research would be forbidden under the new bill, Mayrand said.
"Most of the research will no longer be published because these are communications to the public."
Eventually the Fair Elections Act will wind up in PROC - 10 member committee, 6 of whom are Cons : Chair Joe Preston, Brad Butt, Scott Reid, Blake Richards, Tom Lukiwski, and Ted Opitz of the previously mentioned Etobicoke debacle.
Harper can't win an election without breaking the rules so he makes breaking rules legal.
In other news, under the new citizenship bill, Harper gets to unilaterally strip Canadians of citizenship and secretly make foreigners Canadian citizens.
Post a Comment